


Nascent

by Marsalias



Series: Strange Friendships [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, like in that month, liminality, right after danny gets his powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: In which proximity to an event that tore the very fabric of reality leaves no one unchanged.
Series: Strange Friendships [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960312
Comments: 12
Kudos: 235





	Nascent

Ever since the Accident, everything had felt different. Way different. Maybe part of that was the whole ‘nearly caused the death of best friend, but apparently holes in the universe can give you superpowers’ discovery. Sam _still_ couldn’t get the sound of Danny’s screams out of her head, and it had been over a week. 

Although it was possible the nightmares contributed to that. 

Yeah. 

Anyway, being _concerned_ (not necessarily _worried_ ) about Danny and Tucker all the time was normal after something like that, right? They hung out all the time before, what was a little more? What was a lot more? 

(It annoyed her parents. They complained that she was never home.)

So, yeah. Normal. Trauma response. Also, Danny needed someone to pull him out of the floor when he phased partway through it or (ironically) hide his sudden spurts of involuntary invisibility. 

If that were all that had changed, Sam wouldn’t have thought twice about it. 

But she was curled in front of her computer, writing the fifth email haranguing a school official about having a vegetarian week next year. It was nearly eleven. This was not normal behavior. Not even for someone who was avoiding sleep. 

She’d also been spending more time in her greenhouse, lately, and had been getting in more (and louder) fights with her parents, but she wasn’t sure if those two things weren’t just stress (or being a teenager). Even factoring in how long she’d spent getting the fertilizer around her tomatoes _just_ right.

(The only reason she’d stopped was because she would have been late to meet with Danny and Tucker otherwise. And she was _still_ stressing about it. She hadn’t gotten it quite even around the last plant.)

Back to the emails. 

She’d been _thinking_ about proposing some changes to the school menu. The vegetarian options were laughably limited, and the monthly plan had been the same since the fifties, it looked like. It was actually sort of impressive that it had held up for so long, given all the school lunch reforms and programs the government had done over the years. Whoever had put it together had really cared, Sam decided. 

But it wasn’t _good enough._ Not anymore. People knew more about food, now, and whoever was in charge of inventory had contracted with the absolute cheapest suppliers. Everything they made was full of preservatives. 

It had to change. Now. Before Sam and her friends were forced to deal with it. 

She’d started the project the night Danny got out of the hospital. She hadn’t been able to sleep then, either. 

How many emails had she sent, in total? It had to be nearing fifty. That one night, she hadn’t slept until four in the morning. 

She probably wouldn’t sleep until then, today, either. 

This couldn’t be normal, right?

(Since when did she care about being normal?)

.

Tucker scanned through the programming tutorial with an almost fevered fervor. It wasn’t quite what he was looking for, but he was more than ready to drink in any information he could. 

He had always loved technology. Especially hand held technology. This was about that, but also not. 

Danny had shown him and Sam the portal because they were curious. Sam because ripping a hole to the afterlife sounded metal, and Tucker because Fenton tech was _cool_. Even if the ghost stuff never worked, the Fentons _did_ live on Jack and Maddie’s patents. 

‘Because it was cool’ was a really stupid reason to die. 

If Tucker had known more about engineering, about programming, about the tech he had begged to see, if he could have properly read even one of the dials and instruments attached to the portal, would he have noticed it was still powered up? That electricity was running through it? That it was a death trap?

(Sure, Danny had grown up around Fenton tech, and between the two of them, he had been the one more interested in the engineering side of things, but that _didn’t matter._ )

Tucker was determined not to let that happen again. Hence his current course of study. He was going to know _everything_ about technology, _all_ technology, or die trying. 

Well. At least the technology he interacted with on a daily basis. 

If that meant losing even more of his eyesight as he labored over poorly formatted readme files at midnight, then so be it. His friends were worth it. 

.

Danny jolted into wakefulness with a gasp, his heart hammering. He was _freezing,_ despite being wrapped in his sheet and comforter, despite how hot it had been when he went to bed. 

Something was wrong. 

Immediately, his thoughts jumped to his family. Something was wrong. _They were in trouble. He had to help._

In a daze, he phased through his blankets, barely noticing that this was the first time his ghost powers had done what he wanted and _exactly_ what he wanted. He padded out into the hall, not noticing that his feet weren’t leaving impressions in the carpet. 

Jazz slept with her door open, so it was easy to check in on her. She was safe. No mysterious shadows menaced her as she slept. Her breathing was slow and even. 

His parents? He crept towards their door, part of his mind whirling while the other was deadly sharp. How could he protect them without revealing his… whatever this thing that had happened to him was? That he would have to protect them, that he could protect them, that thought went unchallenged. 

He put his head against the wood of his parents’ door and let his fingers skim the surface. He inhaled, exhaled, and stepped through the solid object. 

Jack Fenton’s snores were deafening. Neither he nor Maddie stirred. Nor did they notice that their room was bathed in dim green light. 

Danny’s eyes locked on to the green blob’s pinpoint red ones. His lips drew back, and he _hissed,_ his eyes burning oddly as he did so. The little… ghost? Was it a ghost? It fled from the room. 

Whatever was going on with Danny’s brain settled into a kind of contentment. Right up until he realized he was in his parents’ room and had no reason he could give them for being there. 

Getting the very squeaky door open so he could get out again gave him five separate heart attacks, even if his parents couldn’t hear him. 

.

“Hey,” said Sam, as they met in Danny’s room the next morning. 

“Hey,” echoed both boys, tiredly. 

“Trouble sleeping?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Danny. 

“Same,” said Tucker. “You, too? Your makeup is heavier than you usually do it.”

Sam stuck out her tongue, then sighed. “Yeah. Have you guys…” The question trailed off, and Sam’s face twisted.

“Have we what?” asked Danny. 

“Had any, like… weird thoughts?”

Danny scrubbed a hand through his hair. His friends did not mention that he briefly flickered out of sight. “I mean, I did di— _almost_ die, I guess?” said Danny. 

No one mentioned this slip, either. 

“That’s…” Danny’s voice went soft. “I’m not like Jazz, or anything, but that’s trauma, right? Like, feeling weird or overprotective or… or _whatever,_ it’s just… That’s just how it is? It’s a—a normal response?”

Despite Danny’s uncertain delivery, Sam and Tucker both nodded. 

“Yeah,” said Sam. “That’s all it is. Okay.”

(They did not think of this moment again until they discovered the term _liminality._ )


End file.
